BENIN:
The sack that was.
by
Prof. Ekpo Eyo,
O.F.R.
Article culled from dawodu.com
Since the title of the paper may not be
readily understood, I would like first to explain it. In 1931,
an exibition of art titled " Images of Power: Art of the Royal
Court of Benin " was staged at the New York University
and a catalogue bearing same title was pubblished. Edited by Dr.
Flora Kaplan, the catalogue consists of various articles written
by eminent archeologists, historians, anthropologists and art
historians the best known of whom was William Fagg C. M. G.,
lately keeper of the Museum of Mankind, London. The title of
Fagg’s paper was " Benin: The Sack That Never Was ".
Those of you who may be familiar with the
infamous story of the British Naval Expedition, sometimes
referred to as the Puntive Expedition, to BENIN CITY
in 1897, may recall having come across at one time or the
other the use of the word " Sack " to describe the manner in
which the intruder destroyed that City and during which event
important places including the OBA’s Palace were burnt
down, the Oba himself banished to Calabar and thousand of
works of art which were kept in the Palace were looted and
carried away to England. Of particular relevance to our topic is
the burning down of the Palace on Sunday February 21, 1897,
three days after the fall of Benin. It was also the last day
before the departure of the Royal Marines from Benin. Before
burning incident the Palace was turned into the resident of the
occupation force and it was there that they stored their
ammunitions and other equipments.
For sometime now, arguments have centred on
how the fire that burnt down the Palace started. Was it an
accident or did it happen by design ? The Commander - in - Chief
of the Expedition, Admiral Rawson states in his diary that the
fire was started accidentally and R. H. Bacon, P.M. the
Intelligence Officer to the Expedition who wrote the account of
the Expedition and the title " BENIN: the CITY of BLOOD
" also confirms that the fire was started by accident.
The most recent to express this same fact is William Fagg who,
in this article aforementioned spares no effort to impress us
that the fire started accidentally. However, this latest attempt
to underline that the fire started accidentally appears designed
to give the impression of an attempt not only to redeem the
conduct of the Expedition but also to justify the looting of
thousands of works of art that were kept at the Palace.
The main contention in Fagg’s article is that
since the fire started accidentally, it is incorrect to use the
word " sack " to describe the manner in which the city was
occupied. According to him, " A sack maybe said to take place
when an invading army sets out to destroy a town - usually by
fire, with or without it’s inhabitants - and gets out quickly
being in no mood for self immolation ". Fagg states that he had
recently seen a letter which emanates from a desendant of an
ordinary member of the Expedition which states that the fire
that burnt down the Oba’s Palace was started by the Expeditions
local porters who were playing with gun powder about three -
quarters of a mile away from the gates of the Palace . He
continue " As for other mark of a sack there was an
indiscriminate slaughter, only deaths in battle outside Benin
city and alter, a fez executions after judicial process (notably
those of Chief Ologbosere and his co-conspirators in the
Benin Massacre). There were certainly no babies torn from
their mothers breast and put to the sword. Afterall, a large
part of the purpose of the Expedition was to suppress the
practice of human sacrifice, and no evidence has been produced
to my knowledge that they were less than sincere upholders of
this aspect of human rights ", with regard to the well known
looting which took place Fagg writes " Nor is there any evidence
of significant looting in the city at large or indeed that there
was anything much there to loot that would attract an english
sailor . . . . the records of known Benin works show remarkably
little that does not appear to have come from the Palace ".
Then, cheerfully, he admits " The Palace, of course, was another
matter . The Bronze plaques, were between 900 and 1000
were reported by cable to the lords of the Admirality by Admiral
Rawson and became the official booty of the expedition to be
sold to defray the cost of the pensions of the killed and the
wounded. The remainder
- bronzes, ivories, wood carvings and iron
work - were not reported but shared out carefully among the
officers. This was an unofficial loot which was still the custom
of war in the nineteenth century however reprehensible we may
now think it."
It has been necessary to quote Fagg in
extenso in order to be fair to him for, paraphrasing might
just fail to bring out the points as he presents them. I would
now like to look again at the points that he has raised in those
statements and offer comments accordingly. As I understand it,
Fagg argues that before a case can be established that Benin was
" sacked ",one must show that - (I) there was an intent by the
invading army to burn and that actual burning by design took
place, - (II) that indiscriminate slaughter of people took
place, - (III) that there was general looting. I wish to take up
these three points and then go on to dwell, albeit briefly, on
the excuse usually given that the purpose of the Phillips
Expedition was to stop human sacrifice. Finally, I will try to
show that the word " sack" used by some writers describing the
manner of the destruction of Benin City is very appropriate, if
not more appopriate than the use of the word " massacre " to
describe the act of killing consul phillips and some members of
his Expedition when they tried to force thier way into Benin
against all advice.
It is necessary at this juncture to briefly
look into the remote and immediate causes which brought about
the 1897 punitive Expedition. I do not wish to delve into the
origins of the Edo people or of their history. It is sufficient
for us to note that the present Benin Dynasty which began
with Oba Eweka I (c. 1200 AD) (Bradbury, 1973) and of
which Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo Oba Erediauwa
is the 39th descendant brought prominence to
Benin. It achieved governmental skill, economic power, complex
religious practices, success at war and the execution of
elaborate art. The successes of the warrior kings beginning with
Oba Ewuare (c. 1440 Ad) made Benin both respected and
feared in west Africa and beyond. The establishment of the Craft
guilds and the number of works produced over centuries all
attest to the Political and economic stability of this erstwhile
vast Empire. In this situation, therefore, the possession of
mystical powers, a lot of which the Oba had, was essential for
sustaining his authority and hold over a vast Empire whose
boundaries were rather tenuous.
By 1894 Benin Empire remained one of the
lassa strongholds of Local Authority in West Africa after the
collapse of the Ashantis, the Nupes and the near
by Itshekiris. In 1894, after Chief Nana has
succumbed to the devastating effect of the combined force of
intrique and European military hardware, it was not surprising
that the British attention was turned to this price Empire whose
seeming invincibility was a challenge to their superiority. It
was not also surprising that the Edo themselves became conscious
and apprehensive that they might be the next victim. And, they
were:
In the 15th century, the first
Europeans, the Portuguese, succeeded in reaching Benin.
They were followed by the Dutch and the British.
The first British Expedition to Benin was led
by Captain Wyndam assisted by a Portuguese named
Piteado and was warmly received by the reigning Oba. This
Expedition remained in Benin for 30 days. In 1558, Queen
Elizabeth I granted a charter to the Royal African
Company to compete in trade with the dutch and the
portuguese in the area and in 1588, a notable English Expedition
under the command of Captain Welsh visited Benin. In
january, 1591, Captain Welsh again reached Benin and collected
Pepper, Ivory and slaves. It is important to
stress that all the various European powers that traded with
Benin including the British were always welcome and treated with
utmost cordiality. Even when the British, Captain Gallwey,
visited Benin as late as 1894 for the purpose of negotiating a
Treaty, all went well. Obaro Ikime has rightly pointed
out that by some of the terms of the Treaty that was signed with
Gallwey (the Oba refused to do the signing himself). Benin’s
Soverignty was virtually given away and, inspite of the terms of
the Berlin conference of 1855 which put the Benin area
under British influence,the Bini never recognised any
other authority than their Oba. The overthrow of Chief Nana in
that year therefore must have struck fear into the minds of the
Edo People for, when Major Crawford, the Vice - Consul
and others tried between 1895 - 6 to reach the Oba, they
experienced great difficulties.
An overt manifestation of Oba’s reaction
against the overthrow of Nana was to close all the hinterland
markets under his control and thus blocaded the flow of Palm
produce to the coast. The blocade was partially lifted when
consul - General Ralph Moor intervened. However, the
intervention did not prevent the Oba from demanding extra
tribute from the Itshekiri middlemen - a demand which turned the
later against him. He also demanded and obtained 20,000
corrugated iron sheets from the British merchants before he
could open up the markets. There is no doubt that in these
actions Oba Overanwen, the reigning King had made enemies
both with the British and his neighbours, a situation that
facilitated his overthrow two years alter.
CONSUL
PHILLIP ILL - FATED EXPEDITION.
The event that was
to lead to the overthrow of the Oba began when an acting consul
- General was appointed for the area in 1896. He was a young
naval Officer, called Captain phillips. With this appointment
events moved rather quickly. Soon after his arrival, consul
Phillips began to advise the "Benin River Chiefs" not to comply
with Oba Overanwen’s demand for additional tribute to the Oba of
Benin for partially opening up the hinterland markets. Phillips
followed up his advice to the Benin River chiefs with a letter
dated November 1846 to Oba Overanwen proposing a visit to Benin
city. The stated purpose of the visit was "to try and persuade
the king to let white men come up to the City When ever they
wanted to" (Boisrangon p. 58) Such a letter could have
done nothing less than increase the fear of the Bini. The king
was "to allow whitemen to come up to the City whenever
they wanted to". The visit was planned for early January
1897. In reply, the Oba requested that the visit be delayed
for two months, to enable him to get through the IGUE
ritual during which time his body is scared and not allowed to
come in contact with foreign elements. Igue ritual is the
highest ritual among the Edo and is performed not only for the
well- being of the king but of his entire subjects and the land.
But Phillips showed no sympathy. He replied the king that he was
in a hurry and could not wait because he has so much work to do
elsewhere in the Protectorate. Defiantly, the expedition
set out as it proposed in January, 1897 and when it arrived at
UGHOTON, three royal Emmissaries met it with a request
that it should tarry for two days so that they could
"send up and let the King know in time for him to make his
preparation for receiving us" (Boisrangon, p.84). Again Phillips
regretted that he could not wait because he has so much work to
do and that he would start early the next morning. And, on the
next morning, he set out for Benin City. By the afternoon of
that day, January 4, 1897 the inevitable happened: Seven out of
nine white members of the Expedition includingPhillips himself
were ambused and killed. The only white survivors were
Boisragon and Locke. The story of this
ill-fated Expedition is set out in Boisragon’s book: The
Benin Massacre.
THE PUNITIVE WAR.
News of the fate of the expedition reached
the Admirality on January 11th,1897 and, with
characteristic British despatch, a Punitive Expedition under
Rear Admiral Rawson, C.B. Commander of the Naval Squadron
at the Cape was organised. They were to be assisted by the
Niger Coast Protectorate Force. By February 4, 1897 , the
Punitive Expedition had taken up strategic points at Ologbo,
Ughoton and Sakponba for three prong attack on
Benin City.
On February 7, the Expedition had gathered
together the "Benin River Chiefs" many of whom were opposed to
Oba Overanwen not only for the purpose of gathering intelligence
from them, but also for the purpose of reading to them the
British proclamation on the "massacre" of the white and the
measures which were to be taken against the Oba and his City.
Bacon (p.29) observered:
"It was impossible to tell from their faces
what
they thought, but it must have been with a
shade
of scepticism that they heard that the king
was to
be no more, his town taken and his priests,
if possible
killed, the Juju houses burned and
the Benin Juju for
ever broken ...."
It is necessary to take note of this intent
to kill and burn, a subject to which I shall return.
By February 11th, everything was
set for the attack. The troops had taken up positions at Ologbo,
Ughoton (Gwato) and Sakponba in readiness for a three
prong march on the City. The main column under Colonel
Hamilton was stationed at Ologbo on the main route to Benin
while the supporting columns at Ughoton and Sakponba were mainly
to stop the escape through these routes of refugees from the
City. Ologbo Village itself was burnt down promptly after the
1897 incident by Captain Burrows (Bacon p.37) and
Gilli-Gilli (Gelle-Gelle), Ughoton and Sakponba suffered the
same fate of burning when the troops took up their positions
there (Bacon, pp. 42&117).
By February 15th, the main column
from Ologbo had reached Agagi and by February 18th
the village of Igba about a mile from Benin City. From
Igba the troops fired their shells and rockets into the City and
the panic stricken Bini took to their heels. When the City was
entered on the same day with the noises of Machine Guns
everywhere, it was a ghost town and the search for the King, the
Noblemen, the Chiefs and others began. The lassa stronghold of
Native authority had fallen and had joined the list of other
strongholds similarly humiliated.
BURNING, BURNING & BURNING.
With this background we are now in a position to
comment on the points raised by Fagg that to prove the
appropriateness of the use of "SACK" to describe the event of
February 1897, one must show an intent by the invading to burn
the City. Before I treat the case of Benin, I would like first
to remind you of the fate of Nana’s town, Brohomi that
was burnt down in 1894 by a combined force of the British Naval
Brigade and the Niger Coast Protectorate Force under Sir
Frederick Bedford, K. C . B. and the Consul- General Ralph
Moor, K. M. G. Secondly, you will recall that the proclamation
read to the Benin River Chiefs on February 7th,
enjoined the Expedition to burn down the Juju houses and where
else do you find the Juju houses in Benin than in the Palace?
Therfore, it is not suprising that soon after the City fell, the
business of burning the Juju houses began. I will again quote in
extenso the accounts of these burnings as written by
Commander R. H. Bacon, the Expedition’s intelligence Officer who
wrote : Benin: the City of Blood. On
page 102 Bacon records that on February 20th:
"In the afternoon a strong party
accompanied
by the Admiral, went to burn
Ojomo’s compound,
a village just at the commencement of
the Gwato
(Ughoton) Road".
Bacon further states (pp. 103-4):
"Early next morning I was sent with a strong
party
of Houssas and the Theseus
sailors and marines
to burn Ochudi’s compound the village
belonging
to the General, who guarded the Ologbo and
Sakponba. This was easily done
resulting in the
capture of one Parrot. This
compound consisted of
about a Hundred houses, whose
roofs made a good
blaze. Behind the buildings there was
a huge Garden
which we never had time to Explore,
but it must have
been quite a hundred Acres surrounded
by a high
Red Wall. It is not unlikely that it
was the walking
place of the King and formed part of
his compound
which the Juju prevents him ever
leaving".
As if enough burning had not been done, Bacon
reports (p.105):
"The same afternoon a large party under
captain
Campbell proceeded to the Iye Oba’s
(Queen Mother)
House and destroyed it, so burning one
more of the
head centers of vice in the City".
It was now Sunday, February 21st,
the day before the marines were scheduled to leave Benin. Bacon
reports (p.106):
"The usual demolitions were proceeded with,
and a
good deal of work done. It was our
lassa day in Benin
and non of us were sorry except for
the protectorate
officers who were to remain with the
Houssas to settle
the Country".
It was on the same day, at 4 o’clock in the
afternoon that the fire to which Rawson and Fagg refered to as
having started accidentally burned down the Palace and a
good part of the City.
Let us concede that the fire was started
without the order of the Commander for the simple reason that
the Palace was now the residence of the occupation force. This
being so, one is tempted bearing in mind that it was customary
to burn down captured towns like Broheimi, Ologbo,
Gilli-Gilli, Gwato e.t.c and, in Benin itself, Chiefs
Ojomo’s and Ochudi’s compounds and the Queen Mother’s House, the
sparing of the Palace cannot be seen as an act of grace. It was
simply that it was being used as the Headquarters of the
Campaign therefore no order was yet given for it to suffer the
fate of others. Afterall the Palace was and still is the center
of the religious activities of the Benin people. It is therefore
possible that no special precaution was taken against its
destruction and, if indeed the fire was started by the
Expedition’s local porters, their action was not inconsistent
with the usual practice of burning.
Afterall, it was their last day in Benin and
porters too, had some grudge against the Monarch.
If the Palace was burnt down accidentally,
the Expedition displayed no sorrow execpt for some Food items
and Equipment that were lost in the fire. Indeed Bacon
(pp.107-8) says:
"There was a dim grandeur about it all , and
also
these seemed to a fate. Here was this head
center
of iniqiuty, spared by us from its suitable
end of
burning for the sake of holding the new seat
of
justice where barbarism had held away, given
into
our hands with the brand of Blood soaked into
every corner and ........ fire only could
purge it, and
here on our lassa day we were to see its
legitimate fate
overtake it."
The question which you and I must now address
our minds to ease whether the facts presented are sufficent to
establish the intent by the invading Army to burn. I am
satisfied that not only was there intent but actually burning
took place as recorded by Bacon. So why do we quarrel with the
use of such an appropriate word in this context?
INDISCRIMINATE SLAUGHTER.
Fagg’s second contention is that they were no
indiscriminate slaughter following the fall of Benin:
"Only deaths in battle outsider Benin city
and alter,
a few Execution after judicial process
(notably those
of Chief Ologbosere and his co-conspirators
in the
Benin Massacre)".
This statement raises a few issues the most
important of which is judicial process adopted and who was
qualified to decide that Chief Ologbosere and his men were
conpirators. The anbsurdity of this situation can be seen when
it is realised that Benin kingdom regarded itself as Sovereign
State which it was, the Berlin conference 1850 and the Gallwey
Treaty 1892 notwithstanding and, as such, had its own laws and
customs. Imagine where you and I would end up if we tried to
force our way into a foreign territory without passports or
visas and against the advice or persuation of the men was
responsability was the security of that state. Phillips and his
men displayed downright disdain for the local authorities and
institutions and their actions were, to say the least rather
rascally and highly provocative. It is against this background
that you must judge the action of Cheif Ologbosere and his men.
The judicial process which the British adopted was prejudicial
to the Edo and egocentrically British. Seen this way the
denial that there was no indiscriminate slaughter in the
Execution of those men is left with little substance. This
conclusion is buttressed by the fact that although it was known
to the British that the Oba had no foreknowledge of the attack
on the Expedition, he was captured, chained and carried away
from his domain on exile to Calabar. I venture to say
that the decision to condem these men to death was as a result
of the injunction of the Admiralty to kill the King’s Juju men.
HUMAN SACRIFICE.
It has been said over and over again that the
British were anxious to get to Benin to stop Human Sacrifice.
This has been restated by Fagg who wrote:
"A large part of the purpose of the
Expedition
was to suppress the practice of human
sacrifice ..."
Benin City has been made out as the most
notorious in this matter to the extent that the Commander R. H.
Bacon, the Expedition’s Intelligence Officer titled his account
of this event " Benin: The City of Blood", he wrote
(p.1):
"Truly has Benin been called the City of
Blood.
Its history is one long record of savagery of
the
most debased kind. In the earlier part of
this
Century (i.e. 19th C) when it was
the center of slave
trade human suffering must have reached its
most
acute form, but it is doubtful if even then
wanton
sacrifice of life could have exceeded that of
more
recent times".
By recent times, Bacon wrote of course
referring first to the killing of Phillips and his men and,
secondly, this series of sacrifices that followed to avert an
impending reprisal by the British. William Fagg himself supports
this view when he wrote:
"He (meaning the Oba) was panic striken when
he
heard (i. e. the killing of Phillips and some
of his
men) and, consulting the soothsayers, engaged
in
a course of terrible pity which was much
worse
than the Massacre itself. He béseeched the
Gods
of Benin, his defied ancestors and the
powerful
spirits, with many hundreds of the most
acceptable
of sacrifices, to save the Kingdom from
inevitable
retribution. This went on all through the six
weeks,
redoubling as the Expedition came up from the
Coast.
Then they entered the near deserted City,
they were
met by corpses, new and old at every shrine."
This was truly the situation for the Bini,
not unlike most societies of the world, have this belief that if
the Gods have to intervene to avert an imminent disaster, then
blood must be spilt. The degree of the spilling of blood that is
said to have horrified the occupation force can be said to be
only proportional to the degree of imminent danger.
Sacrifice, particularly human sacrifice, is
generally nowadays looked upon as a barbarous act. It was not so
in the past and, even now the sacrifice of human life still
takes place and on a grander scale than in the past. The only
thing is that sacrifice now takes a different form, a not
unexpected evolution, but in the end they all boil down to the
same thing: namely, the taking or giving of life. In the new
form of sacrifice the Western world’s practice of human
sacrifice is unmatched outside that world.
The word "sacrifice" is derived from the
latin Sacer meaning "Sacred" and Facere
meaning "To make". In the religious context, it means the
offering of a sacred victim for the purpose of obtaining from
the gods benefits - health, longevity, crop increase, avertion
of disasters etc. It also means the request for forgiveness of
sin or atonement for transgression. The Bible is full of
instances of the Hebrews performing one form of sacrifice or the
other and the spilling of blood was common and sanctioned by the
Bible. Thus in Leviticus chapter XV11 verse 11 it is
said:
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood:
and I have
given it to you upon the altar to make
atonement
for your souls: for it is the blood that
maketh
atonment by reason of the life."
Furthermore, among the Isrealities, the
Covenant was ratified in blood. Hence the spilling of blood was
so common that Abraham was about to sacrifice his only
son Isaac to the Lord. Jesus Christ,
the son of God himself, sacrificed his body for the redemption
of our souls. Is it not therefore obvious that it was not the
Bini who invented the institution of sacrifice?
Nowadays, what appears to be a less offensive
form of sacrifice is the sacrifice of surrogates e. g. rams,
goats, chicken and effigies. This practice must have originated
from the time that God, according to the Bible, provided Abraham
with a ram for the sacrifice instead of his son. Perhaps, too,
the substitution of slaves and commoners in societies where the
king was expected at certain fixed times to give up his life for
the benefit of his society may have been responsible for the use
of surrogates in sacrifice. Whatever might have been the case,
it is also obvious the sacrifice of human being existed long
before Benin society came into existence.
Let me now say that what I am trying to
present here is not in any way an attempt to endorse the
practice may seem to us today, it was common and legitimated by
society itself and sanctioned by most world religions including
those of the Hebrews, Anglo - Saxons and the Edo. In all these
societies, it cannot be said that sacrifice was carried out
primarily for the love of merely taking life, but because it was
thoroughly believed in all these societies that the gods
demanded it. In other words it happened in the religious context
and any religion is a system of belief which its followers
should never question.
But look at the world today. The loss of life
for religious sake in Northern Ireland and
Maitatsine’s affair in Kano are only too recent
examples. In times past the history of the world is rife with
previous cases of sacrifice like during the Crusades and
the Holy Jihad. The loss of life for the protection of
territorial integrity of a nation as we witnessed in the
Nigerian civil war and now witnessing in the Falkland
crisis are too well - known to all of us. The loss of life
for the protection of ideologies is so rampant that the two
world wars, the Korean war, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still
fresh in our minds. Today, there are a thousand and one reasons
why nations and groups still continue to lay down or sacrifice
lives in order to obtain or maintain certain benefits in life.
This is exactly what happened in the past execpt in the question
of degree. The world has never before now seen such massive
destruction of life and, in this matter, the Western "civilised"
world is second to none. I therefore maintain that while not
approving what ever human practices the Bini carried out in the
past, that if this practice is to be condemned, there must be an
all round condemnation of every society past and present that
had committed this offence against mankind. The excuse that the
British gave for interfering in the scared ceremonies of the
Bini under the pretext of stopping human sacrifice is therefore
a case of a very black pot calling a less black kettle, black.
I have tried in this paper to give a
background to the events that took place in and around the very
place where we are sitting this evening, an event that appears
to be pricking the conscience of the British. I say this because
there seems to me no other reason why it has recently become
necessary to remove the word "sack" from the description of the
tragic event of 1897. I think that the least that could have
been done in the circumstance, would have been to let the
sleeping dog lie.
In my opinion, the use of that word is not
less exact than the use of the word "massacre" to describe the
killing of Consul Phillips and some of his men. Now the word
"massacre" means killing in a bizzare manner. But given the
circumstance of this event which I have already described, one
can see that neither the idea of killing was bizzare nor the
mode of the killing. Chief Ologbosere and his men used their
dane guns and their cutlasses just as the punitive
Expeditioners used their maxims and pistols to
despatch their enemies. The use of matchets can be
parrelled to the use of swords which was mainly the weapon of
offence and defence in Europe until it was replaced by the gun.
It is therefore not fair to say, all
circumstances considered, that it is less appropriate to use the
word "massacre" to describe Consul Phillips fate than to use the
word "sack" to describe the wanton destruction of the City of
Benin? The sack of Benin was bad enough but an attempt to dress
it up now for justification may be more unforgiveable.
